Forgive me for not keeping you in the loop, Dear Reader, but 2012 is off to a whirlwind start. My family had a fantastic vacation in San Diego the first week of the year, which included touring a mag...
2012 is just around the corner, so what better time to say out with the old and in with the new? In my case, I am continuing my kitchen progress by saying goodbye to my old top-freezer refrigerator a...
With my butcherblock countertop cut and finished, I was ready to install it along with my new kitchen sink and faucet. As a reminder, here is the sink area of my kitchen before the installation: I be...
Merry Christmas! As a way to share a bit of the season with you, I thought it might be fun to give you a little holiday tour featuring some of my favorite ornaments from our Christmas tree. The Glitt...
A couple weeks ago, I got a letter from the city notifying me that my juniper bushes were encroaching on the sidewalk and needed to be trimmed. (Sorry, neighbors!) Within a few days I got out my anvi...
My plans for the kitchen countertop, sink and backsplash will make a big difference in my low-cost kitchen upgrade project, so I couldn’t wait to get rolling. I started with the countertop beca...
Something is cooking in the kitchen, and it isn’t just Christmas cookies. My kitchen remodel continues with a big, high-impact change–replacing the countertop, sink and backsplash. As wit...
I love it when a plan comes together. A couple posts ago I shared my plan to revise the back yard to remove the vegetable garden, consolidate the patio space, and expand the lawn. Now I can show my s...
Halloween is in full swing as I type this from my front yard adirondack chair, a fire in my firebowl, while trick-or-treaters comb the block with their costumes and heavy-laden pillowcases. If you dr...
A few years ago I beefed up the raised garden bed in my backyard with a decorative fence and soil amendments. My goal was simple: to make the veggie garden more attractive and productive. Three years...
It’s not exactly rain on my wedding day, Alanis, but things are getting awfully ironic around here. Specifially, I have been so productive with house projects this fall you might expect me to h...
Fall is the perfect time to clear the shelves of anything worn-out, used-up or useless and prepare for a few months of inside-only projects. I recently hauled away a car load of hazardous and irregul...
An air conditioner at rest will remain at rest unless it is acted upon by a careless dolt (me) who doesn’t hold onto it during removal. An air conditioner in motion will remain in motion until ...
I couldn’t be more thrilled to have True Value Hardware as a partner on this blog. Their sponsorship enabled my recent work on my deck and they continue to provide great opportunities for DIYer...
Clean the deck: check. Expand the deck: check. And now I can check off the last step in my deck maintenance project: staining the deck. Before I launch into the before-and-after, first a word about d...
Homeowners who neglect the condition of their roof do so at their peril. After all, water will always take the path of least resistance– and with damaged shingles that could be through your cei...
Composting is great. For the small effort of dumping your fruit and vegetable scraps, coffee grounds and occasional leaf litter in a backyard bin or pile, you can produce a rich soil additive to use ...
Over the past few weeks my family has adopted several monarch caterpillars we found on the milkweed in our yard. In the first part of this story, I shared how those caterpillars grew and formed their...
Very little good can come from letting weeds get out of control in your yard. Not only do the weeds look bad, but they can choke out the desirable plants and seed themselves so the problem keeps gett...
Multiple choice: What do I have in common with style icon of the moment, Don Draper, the fictional 60′s ad executive of AMC’s drama Mad Men? 3-martini lunches shameless womanizing a dark ...
While cleaning the deck recently, I had some time to think. As I scrubbed away at the mildew stains, I realized that my plan to clean and stain the deck had a problem: Cleaning and staining are fine ...
A neighborhood furniture and antique store is preparing to close its doors after over 30 years. I stopped in looking for deals as they wind down their operation. The first thing to catch my eye was t...
Every home owner has experienced them– house projects that go wrong. Here just a few forms those DIY problems can take: The Snowball: a DIY project that just keep growing larger or more expensi...
Maintain what you’ve got. It’s thrifty, green, preservationist, and pretty much the first rule of smart home ownership. So why in over six years here have I never done a minute’s wo...
It won’t be kept in my workshop, but you’ll notice the contribution of this tool to every project I share. It’s my new Sony a55 dslr camera. I have owned film slr cameras before, b...
It might not be a car that turns into a robot, but what other than “transformer” do you call a table that can change from a 42″ round pedestal to a 102″ five-legged banquet? ...
When I hung the schoolhouse light fixtures in my kitchen a few weeks back, readers suggested that I try painting stripes on my inexpensive big box lights like the ones on the expensive schoolhouse gl...
They like me! That must be why True Value Hardware has included me in their DIY Blog Squad for a third straight year. As before, True Value is providing me with $1,000 to spend on the materials and ...
When I last wrote about my kitchen project I showed the exterior side of converting the old back door to a new alcove for the refrigerator. This time the work shifts indoors with a before-and-after ...
This post is part of a 10-site blog tour. Follow the links at the end of the post to move forward or backward through the tour sites. Welcome to Bungalow ’23! Whether you are a regular reader...
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